26 entrepreneurs
Robyn Jones: ‘I don’t like things easy, I like to do it the hard way’
Going without food and drink while setting up her company, doing paperwork in hospital when she gave birth to her daughter, working holidays with her family – Robyn Jones OBE, co-founder and chief executive of independent catering group CH&Co, loves a challenge.
Jones co-founded the company with her husband Tim Jones in 1991, and today Reading-headquartered CH&Co has an annual turnover of approximately £75 million, employs almost 2,000 people nationwide and is one of the most respected companies within the food service sector.
In May 2010 the company re-branded and it now has six specialist brands: Charlton House, Lusso, Chester Boyd, It’s the Agency, Ampersand and Via 360. Clients include Gatwick Airport, the Law Society and Sony, and the company manages The Garden Café at Buckingham Palace. Last year it won a contract with Historic Royal Palaces to provide catering at The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace.
In January 2011, Jones was awarded an OBE for services to the hospitality industry. She is a trustee of The PM Trust, a patron of the Association of Catering Excellence and a guardian member of the charity Hospitality in Action. She won the Booker Prize for Excellence in Catering in 1993 and was named the Credit Suisse Most Outstanding Woman in Business in 2006.
CH&Co has recently diversified into public restaurants, and Jones plans for the company to continue with the strong growth. She says: "What makes me get up in the morning is that next challenge, I love challenges."
Tom Copas: my family and other animals
On leaving school in 1957, Tom Copas' father bought him 150 turkeys which he sold on to local markets and families. Today, the Cookham-based Copas Partnership, Copas Traditional Turkeys, produces 42,000 traditional turkeys at Christmas time and the company has grown and evolved into a diverse rural business ranging from turkeys, to hospitality at Henley Royal Regatta, to property and hosting 80s music festival Rewind. Yet it remains a true family business, managed today by Copas, his three daughters and his son.
Founder and chairman of Copas Traditional Turkeys, Copas is the third generation in the family farming business which was started by his grandfather, who, in 1901, bought land in Cookham Dean and farmed, mainly fruit, from his pub. Copas’ father and uncles inherited the business in 1936 and developed it further, moving into pigs, sheep and cattle. From 1957 Copas and his brother continued the business, growing it considerably until they split it in 1999, and today The Copas Partnership is approximately 50% turkeys, 25% hospitality and events at Henley Royal Regatta and 25% diversified property lets of surplus farm buildings and arable land that is contract farmed.
Copas is married with four children who, from 1999 onwards, have all gradually joined the business. Together they manage The Copas Partnership and Copas’ youngest daughter, Sarah, is general manager.
Copas is a life president of the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (NFYFC), founder of the TFTA (The Traditional Farmfresh Turkey Association), fellow of the Council of Royal Agricultural Societies (FRAgS) and was master of the Company of Farmers in 2007-2008.
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In 2004 Paul Lindley left his high-flying job and re-mortgaged his home to found children’s organic food brand Ella’s Kitchen, named after his daughter. This year, families will spend over £50 million on Ella’s Kitchen foods, and the company, based near Henley, has a 12% share of the UK baby food market and its sights set firmly on becoming a global brand.
No stranger to success, at the time of writing the full profile (November 2011), Lindley was about to walk away with the Entrepreneur of the Year title at the National Business Awards. In fact, Lindley and Ella’s Kitchen had already won 31 awards in five years, including the BlackBerry customer focus award for small business at the 2010 National Business Awards and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the London and south region 2011.
Lindley was born in Sheffield and grew up in Zambia. After graduating from the University of Bristol, he trained and qualified as a chartered accountant at KPMG and then worked as financial controller, later rising to deputy managing director, at children’s television brand Nickelodeon. There he became passionate about children’s health, and was involved in creating a brand that children thought was made by children and parents felt was safe. In 2006 he launched Ella’s Kitchen, which now has an annual turnover of £30m and was ranked in the top 15 fastest-growing private companies in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 in both 2009 and 2010.
Lindley is a co-founder of The Consumer Forum, a partnership of entrepreneurial UK companies which promotes customer excellence in business. Married with two children, Ella and Paddy, he lives in Reading.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2012
Paul Lindley: baby boom – a success story
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